Optical passive athermalization for infrared zoom system

In an infrared zoom system, it is difficult to obtain the best thermal compensation for all effective focal length (EFL) simultaneously by moving a single lens group. According to the principle of optical passive athermalization, the equations of focal length, achromatization and athermalization of both long and short EFL are established respectively. By analyzing the thermal aberration value relations between long EFL and short EFL, the thermal aberration values of the switching groups for short EFL athermalization are calculated. Firstly, the athermalization of long EFL is designed. Then through reasonable optical materials matching of the switching groups, the short EFL achieves athermalization as well. In this paper, a re-imaging switching zoom system is designed. It has a relative aperture of f/4.0, 100% cold shield efficiency, the EFL of 180mm/30mm at 3.7-4.8 mu m. The long EFL includes four refractive elements and one hybrid refractive/diffractive element. The switching groups of short EFL have two types, one is composed of four refractive elements, and the other is composed of two refractive elements and one hybrid refractive/diffractive element. Both of the short EFL achieve athermalization. With the aluminum materials of system structures, the zoom system achieves optical passive athermalization. It has the diffraction limited image quality and stable image plane from -30 degrees C to 70 degrees C.